Nasser was only four years old in June 1986 when, after the remains of an ancient synagogue were discovered in Old Susya. Israel's Civil Administration declared his village an archaeological site and expropriated it. Bulldozers had blocked the caves and destroyed their homes.

Legal and diplomatic battles in United Nations organizations and international sport associations involving charges of war crimes and efforts to suspend membership of one or the other are likely to shape future Israeli-Palestinian relations in the wake of last month's electoral victory by Binyamin Netanyahu.

It is time to look at the damage the occupation is doing to both nations and what is happening to the morals of our country. I for one, love Israel; it is my country, but I find it impossible not to notice what is happening to the moral fiber of our nation.

Palestine has set a new benchmark for nations like the Kurds and the Kosovars who see soccer as a key part of their toolbox to achieve statehood with its qualification for this month's Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup even if the Palestinian road to statehood is increasingly pockmarked by seemingly insurmountable barriers.

The Israeli military said the incident had not been a raid. It said a routine patrol had asked some Palestinians for their identification cards, and when they said the cards were in Bnei Sakhnin's offices soldiers had entered the building to check their identities.

Mounting tension between Israel and Palestinians on the occupied West Bank and in East Jerusalem have spilt on to Israeli Palestinian soccer pitches in Israel proper as Israel swings towards ultra-nationalists that make Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu look like the best card in a bad hand.

Israel appears to be mobilizing a grassroots campaign against Qatar's hosting of the 2022 World Cup as part of the Jewish state's effort to isolate Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls the Gaza Strip, and bolster the fortunes of the Palestine Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinian soccer clubs and non-governmental organizations have called on European soccer governor UEFA to this week shy away from awarding Israel the right to host the 2020 UEFA European Championship.

Rockets fired. Retaliation ensues. A shaky peace follows and we are back at another round of negotiations in the stop-and-start cycle of ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza confrontation. As talk turns back to how to re-start the broken peace process, even as Israel claims fresh territory in the West Bank, let us consider something radically different.

The campaign to pressure FIFA to sanction Israel was part of a broader Israeli Palestinian move to gain recognition of Palestinian statehood through membership in international organizations and isolate Israel in the wake of the breakdown in April of US-sponsored Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

We have now been bystanders to two weeks of unrelenting missile attacks by one of the world's strongest armies on the open air prison that is Gaza. Some of those who have seen the carnage first hand have forsaken the macabre dance of evenhandedness that much of the media is engaged in, for anguished emotional overflow.

Extolling the virtues of a ceasefire in the Gaza war that collapsed barely two hours after it took effect, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry inadvertently highlighted the root cause of the failure of international efforts to silence the guns in the Palestinian territory and resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Qatar's latest investment in Israeli Palestinian soccer comes against a backdrop of a war of words between the two countries over the Gulf state's support for Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls the war-wracked Gaza Strip.

But more importantly it highlights a growing realization that Hamas is emerging politically strengthened from the death and destruction in Gaza while Israel is fighting a rear guard battle to turn military success into political victory.